The Villanelle in Australia

The villanelle is a very old poetic form, medieval in fact, but it has become popular with contemporary poets in Australia. In this program, Mike Ladd introduces us to the form and its history and gives us some new examples from a range of Australian poets.

The villanelle was embraced by the musician-poets of 12th century France; the troubadours of Provençal and the trouvères of the north, but its origin is Italian. The name comes from the Latin “villa” or “farm house” and the first villanelles were work songs or rounds sung by labourers in the fields and olive groves. Its structure was formalised in France in the 16th Century. The villanelle is usually 19 lines long; made up of 5, three-line stanzas, and a final quatrain. Woven through those stanzas is a strict rhyme scheme and two refrain lines that repeat themselves in a set order. Here's an example by Stephen Edgar from his collection Other Summers:

Im Sommerwind

On a hot listless Sunday afternoonI’m sprawling on the porch by the front door While someone’s radio murmurs a tune.

My mother’s brought a chair out to maroon Herself a moment between chore and chore On a hot listless Sunday afternoon.

The screen door wants to let the house communeWith languid airs that stray in to explore,While someone’s radio murmurs a tune

That never seems to end or change, a croonI can't attend to and don't quite ignore. On a hot listless Sunday afternoon

Across the faded park figures are strewn, Poised in the motives they have come here for. While someone's radio murmurs a tune

Nothing can happen here, nothing impugnThe hour. It will be now for evermore On a hot listless Sunday afternoonWhile someone’s radio murmurs a tune.

So many villanelles refer to Time. It’s built into the way their refrain lines loop back on us, refusing to let go, while the lines between, push the poem forward.Time passing, memory, repetition, obsession, emotions that stubbornly refuse to leave: these are the natural subjects of the villanelle.